Blackpool mum scoops £300,000 on Lottery

Teresa Leahy from Blackpool won �303,475.20 on the Euro Millions pictured with her daughters Amber and Sasha. Images by Gareth Jones

Published:15:07Thursday 04 February 2016

A Blackpool mum-of-three is celebrating today after scooping over £300,000 on the National Lottery EuroMillions draw and is now looking forward to waving her daughters off as they fulfil their travelling dreams.

Teresa Leahy, 51, won £303,465.20 after matching five numbers and one Lucky Star and now plans to give her daughters the best possible send-off as they depart on their travels.

Teresa, who plays EuroMillions every Friday, said she decided to buy an extra two lines last week after finding five shiny pound coins at the bottom of her bag.

Teresa said: “I had put my lucky dip line on as usual and then I discovered the shiny coins at the bottom of my bag and I thought – these are lucky coins so I decided to play an extra two lucky dip lines.”

And it was one of these lines which led to her win and Teresa now being able to pay off her mortgage and live the life she has always dreamed of.

Teresa said: “Everything just seems so unreal – I want to sit down and think what I really want to buy. Take my time over things. I will definitely be paying off my mortgage and I will also be able to support two of my daughters with their travel dreams.

“They have always wanted to travel to Australia and have been saving hard. Now I will be able to help them on their trip and enable them to stay in lovely places.”

Amber, 25 and Sasha, 22, will leave in the next few weeks.

Teresa added: “I will obviously really miss them but this is something they have always wanted to do and as a mum you always like to support your children and help to make their dreams come true. Thanks to this win I will be able to

do that.”

The property developer, who is married and also has a 14-year-old daughter, described the moment she discovered she had won: “I was checking my numbers and at first I saw I had matched two numbers.

“I then realised I had matched five numbers and just screamed out loud. I was on my own at the time and just thinking who can I tell? Who can I tell? I had won more than £100,000. I was thinking I had probably won around £121,000.

“It was about five minutes later when I had started to calm down a little and looked to check the numbers again to check I really had won that I realised I had a Lucky Star too! This meant I had won an amazing amount of money. I was just jumping around the house and actually had to keep putting cold water on my face, thinking is this really true? Could this all be a dream?”

Teresa, who intends to carry on working, says she has no plans to stop playing EuroMillions now.

She added: “I already have my ticket for this Friday. I always thought it could never happen to me and now it has – this is just proof dreams like this can come true for anyone.”